Mackesy, Gianforcaro Lead Princeton Past Harvard To Set Up Ivy Title Showdown At Cornell

Saturday, April 22

Princeton, N.J.

1:00 PM

Princeton University

6-5, 4-1Ivy

Harvard

5-6, 2-3Ivy

Harvard

Princeton

Princeton's Class of 2023 was honored before the 17-11 win over Harvard.

Photo by: Shelley M. Szwast

Mackesy, Gianforcaro Lead Princeton Past Harvard To Set Up Ivy Title Showdown At Cornell

April 22, 2023 | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

Princeton was up big on Harvard in the second quarter until the Crimson stuck back-to-back-back goals. Suddenly, it felt like 2022 all over again.

Ah, but this is 2023, when almost everything has been the reverse for Princeton, for the good and the bad. And so it was that Christian Ronda answered the flurry just before the half as Princeton ended the Harvard momentum, leading to a 17-11 Tiger win in front of 1,527 at Sherrerd Field. With the win, Princeton will now play Cornell in Ithaca this coming Saturday, and the outright Ivy League title will go to the winner of that game.

The win over Harvard featured two extraordinary individual performances, as goalie Michal Gianforcaro made a career-high 20 saves and attackman Coulter Mackesy had his second 10-point game of the year with eight goals and two assists.

Princeton led 10-3 in the second quarter after an 8-0 run and had shut Harvard out for nearly 22 minutes when the Crimson struck three times in a 1:03 span, and just like that it was 10-6 and Harvard had all of its confidence back. Why would the Crimson? After all, a year ago in Cambridge, Princeton led 9-4 in the second quarter before Harvard made a run and then sprinted away in the second half to win 19-16.

The third of the Harvard goals came with 35 seconds left in the half, and then probably the biggest moment of the game happened. Koby Ginder won the face-off and Ronda took over from there, sprinting down the left side and getting to the cage scoring with 10 seconds left to make it 11-6 at the break. Harvard got no closer than five in the second half.

The main reasons were Gianforcaro, whose 20 saves featured several from right on top of him and kept Harvard from having anything other than that one run, and Mackesy, who became the fifth Princeton sophomore to reach 100 career points and kept going all the way to 108, with his eight goals and 10 points equalling his output against Yale earlier this season.

Ronda had four goals and two assists, and Sean Cameron had a career-best three. Freshman face-off man Andrew McMeekin, the reigning Ivy Rookie of the Week, won 14 of 25 face-offs with 10 ground balls.

Also unlike 2022, there is simplicity instead of chaos as the league heads into the final weekend. Along with Cornell's win over Brown and Penn's win over Dartmouth, three of the four Ivy tournament spots are secure, and there is a play-in game of sorts next week for the fourth, which will go to the winner of Harvard's game at Yale.

For Princeton, there are only two possible seeds: first, if the Tigers beat Cornell, or third, if Princeton loses to Cornell. Princeton's Ivy semifinal game would be against the Harvard-Yale winner with a win over Cornell or against Penn with a Cornell win over Princeton. The Ivy tournament, the first weekend in May at Columbia, will determine the league's automatic NCAA tourmament bid. Regardless of that, the winner of the game in Ithaca will be the Ivy League champion for 2023.

Princeton honored its 16 seniors before the game: Luc Anderson, Harrison Caponiti, Weston Carpenter, Jack Crockett, Sam English, Ben Finlay, Luca Lazzaretto, Luke Moriarty, Beau Pederson, Griffen Rakower, Cathal Roberts, Christian Ronda, Alex Slusher, Jake Stevens, Jacob Stoebner, Alexander Vardaro.